


don't dream it's over

by comeseetheduck



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Coming Out, Everyone is Trans!, Ganke is mentioned but idk if i should tag him, Gender Exploration, Gender Identity, Resident Advisors, and there was only one bed, non-binary characters, oh shit it's 4 in the morning i should go to bed, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17657549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeseetheduck/pseuds/comeseetheduck
Summary: Miles and Gwen have a sleepover of sorts.





	don't dream it's over

**Author's Note:**

> [this fic was in part inspired by this song by a friend in the band Porch Cat.](https://porchcat.bandcamp.com/track/bummed-out-2) [the title was inspired by this cover by the Bad Plus.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsunCcH2GMc)

Gwen’s dorm room was always messier than he expected it to be. It sort of made sense, didn’t it? With them all being Spider-People and being so busy all the time that tidying up was almost always on the bottom of the priority list. And yet, something about Gwen made him think that she was going to somehow be more put together than he was at any given point.

Probably the whole being-perfect-in-every-other-way thing.

And it’s not like her messy dorm room wasn’t perfect in its own way! There were usually socks on the ground and often a pile of energy drinks waiting to be recycled in the corner and every once in a while he would accidentally sit on a drumstick, but still! None of those inconveniences compared to those fleeting, nearly magical moments when he would lounge in Gwen’s bed and look at all of the posters that she had stuck up to the wall, when it got dark and the fairy lights would light up Gwen’s face in greens and blues. And even if any of the mess had bothered him, being able to look at Gwen’s face more than made up for it…

Yeah, he had it bad. He’d had it bad for what felt like forever. His friends – “friends” – had been telling him to tell her for the past year and a half but… it never felt like the right time, or Gwen would do something that would make him think that there’s no way that she liked him in a romantic way. Like when he went back to his home dimension three visits ago: she hugged him but then gave him the two brother taps on the back! There’s no way that you would give a person that you liked romantically the two brother taps on the back!

Anyways.

Gwen’s dorm room was always messier than he expected it to be, but today was probably the worst that he had ever seen it. Gwen probably hadn’t realized how bad it was today, especially when it looked like her entire laundry basket had been dumped on the floor. A laundry basket that included a very cute pink polka dotted bra that he was trying very hard to not think about. She had realized how bad it was and briefly kicked him out of the room before stuffing everything back into a hamper, but even with the clothes cleaned from the floor, something about the room seemed frazzled. Maybe it was just him, and this crush that had been eating away at his brain. Maybe it was how the dimensional-warping gizmo had just been upgraded and he was going to stay in Gwen’s world for longer than he ever had before. Maybe it was just hormones going wild after Gwen had changed into a cutoff shirt and sweats after she got back from some campus meeting. She had said something about the university uniforms and how much she hated them and he had nodded in agreement, hoping to prevent sticking his foot into his mouth. Maybe it was because it was spring and the cherry trees outside were blooming and it turns out that he was allergic to cherries in this dimension.

In any case, it was getting late, and while he had planned to stay at Aunt May’s house for the night, he really didn’t want to leave. Just talking with Gwen about anything and nothing at all just felt so good that he didn’t want to stop. While Gwen drummed on her knees, lying on the floor, he hung on the walls doodling imagined city skylines into a pocket-sized notebook he bought from a convenience store. He felt himself getting tired. He felt the scribbles get more and more haphazard until buildings turned into synapse sketches. It felt like he should leave soon, and then –

The whole building shakes. The lights flicker. Miles’ Spider-Sense doesn’t go off, but he still feels the adrenaline spike of fight-or-flight. Gwen looks at him, and she saw something that gave her pause.

“Miles? Do you know what that was?”

“I don’t know.”

“Miles, are you hiding something from me?”

“Yes? I mean, no? Why would you ask that?”

“Miles, you’re sweating.”

“No, I’m not.” He was.

“Miles!”

“Gwen.”

“Listen, if you’re hiding from me I’ll-“

Three very loud knocks on the door. “RA on call!”

“Shit shit shit shit shit!” Gwen throws Miles her blankets. “Hide on the bed, and don’t move. If they find you here I could get expelled!” she says in a whisper. Miles nods and then covers himself with the blankets, trying to stay as still as possible. He can’t see anything, but he can hear Gwen open the door.

“Hey, whatsup?”

“Yeah just making sure that people weren’t freaking out after the earthquake that just happened but I overheard some talking in your room when I was making my way over. You do realize that it’s quiet hours, right?”

“Oh, yeah, my bad, I had just gone to bed and got woken up by the earthquake so I called my uh, grandpa, to make sure he was okay.”

“Your grandfather.”

“Oh yeah.” Miles rolls his eyes. Gwen is such an awful liar.

“You called your grandfather at four in the morning.”

“…yes.”

“What’s your grandfather’s name?”

“Peter.”

Miles barely – just barely – stifles his laughter at the mention of Gwen’s "grandfather" Peter (aka Peter B), but even that stifled laughter seems to alert the RA.

“Is there someone in there?”

“What? No…”

The light turns on, and Miles can barely see the silhouette of the RA through the blanket. The RA walks up to him, pulls the blanket off the bed, and…

…she sees nothing.

“Hmm.”

“It must have been the window!” Gwen says frantically, as she scrambles towards the bed.

“Sure.”

“Anyways, I’m going to go back to sleep, so…” The RA stares Gwen down as she climbs into the bed and pulls the blanket over her. “Could you turn off the light and close the door on your way out?”

“Yeah yeah,” the RA mutters, pausing to look around the room before turning off the light and quietly closing the door.

Gwen’s room fell quiet outside of a light wind pushing against the windows and the sounds of electricity buzzing through the fairy lights and the computer on Gwen’s desk. Miles, completely frozen, listens for the sound of the RA leaving the dorm but trying to pay attention to that is made impossible by Gwen, lying basically on top of him on the twin mattress.

She’s so close to him that he can smell the brand of toothpaste that she used earlier. His hand, resting right on her clavicles, can feel her pulse. Stray hairs have landed on his face, and he stays perfectly still, not wanting to make a wrong move, waiting patiently for an all-clear.

Eventually, Gwen starts breathing normally again, moves to the very edge of the bed to give Miles room, and then Miles blinks back to visibility.

“…holy shit.”

“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Gwen whispers. “Chloe is a stickler for the rules and it would have been really bad if she had found you.”

“Don’t worry, I get it. Conservative school rules.” He pauses. “Should I leave now, then?”

“Actually, if you leave now you’re at risk of getting caught sneaking out. It’s probably best if you stay here.”

Miles nods. “Okay, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Miles, no. You are my guest, and my guest is not going to sleep on the floor. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Gwen, you have loads of stuff to do tomorrow. I’m not going to let _you_ sleep on the floor _either._ ”

Gwen giggles. “Well, I guess the only option is to share this bed.”

“This tiny-ass bed.”

“Yeah. It’ll be like a sleepover.”

“Yeah.”

Gwen turns over to face away from Miles, and Miles does the same, but now he’s fully amped on adrenaline and can’t get to sleep. He sits on the bed, silently, his mind absolutely racing, thinking about the advice that his friends had been giving him for so long now, just say it so that it’s out there, you can’t keep it a secret forever, and if she doesn’t like you like that it’ll be okay, you can make friendship work, just like you have been making it work, and –

“Miles?”

“Yeah?”

Gwen pauses, and then turns over and faces towards him. Miles thinks about turning too, but also thinks about how hard it would be to be that close to her face, again, as their legs nearly start to tangle together.

“Do you ever just feel a little bit fucked up?”

That makes him pause.

“Like, I don’t know. I’m not even talking about the Spider stuff right now. It’s just that… I’m at this school that expects me to be a certain type of girl, you know? I have to wear the right uniform and bow politely and everything else, just be the model woman. And even when I’m Spider-Woman, it still feels like there’s a certain way I’m supposed to be Spider-Woman, you know? And sometimes when it’s late at night and I can’t sleep, I just feel… a little fucky, you know? Like something’s just messed up.”

Miles turns over.

“Gwen, sometimes I feel like I’m just… you know how like people will on the street be like ‘wassup, Spider-Man?’ And I know I have the Spider powers, and I’m Spider-Man, but – it’s like it don’t feel right? Like sometimes when I’m at school and people are calling me sir, or telling me to be ‘a man’, it feels like I’m not quite doing it right. And I feel like I’m letting everybody down about it too. My dad, he wants me to be the best man that I can be, and I’m trying to be the best me that I can be but I’m not sure if I’m even being a _man_ good enough, you know?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“It’s like my DNA got fucked up or something and I feel more like a spider than a man or something.”

“Spider-Human.”

“Like a fucked up Spider-Ham. A _more fucked up Spider-Ham._ ”

Gwen laughs again. Miles wishes he could bottle this feeling. The laughter, like the feeling, dies away shortly afterwards, leaving only the hum of electronics and the chorus of voices in Miles’ head telling him to do it. Do it. Tell her how you feel.

He doesn’t.

“Have you thought about switching your name? Or your pronouns? Or… any of that stuff?”

“…have you?”

“I mean. Ganke, uh, taught me about all this stuff pretty recently, so I haven’t really known about it at all. I just thought that, maybe – “

“Yeah, but if you’re going through the same thing as I am, then you could try it too, right?”

“I guess?”

“I mean. I like Spider-Gwen more than Spider-Woman, I think. I can’t go by that, officially, but. I like my name, I think.”

“At one point I tried to change my name to Sphere.”

“Sphere?”

“Yeah, I was like, five, and it was my favorite shape, and I made my mom and dad call me Sphere for like a month and a half, according to them.”

“Wow.”

“I don’t know why I told you that.”

“We could try it.”

“Try what?”

“Try pronouns.”

“Okay. Uh, okay. Which set should I start with?”

“Any set, I guess.”

“Okay. Uh, hey, I have this friend, Gwen. Have you heard of him? He’s really cool and shit and plays in a band.”

“Ew, no.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Something else?”

“ _Yes.”_

“Okay. Uh, hey, everybody, this is my friend Gwen! They’re really cool and play in a band, and they’re smart and funny, and uh… they’re on my hand and it’s falling asleep– “

“Sorry, my bad.”

“…was that better though?”

“Uh, I think so? I’ll think about it.”

“Okay.”

“Your turn.”

“What?”

“Hey, have you met my friend Miles? They’re really cool, and they draw, and they used to go by the name Sphere – “

“Oh my god.”

“ – and they can turn invisible!”

“God, I still remember that day, where y’all were just staring at me – “

“Yeah, because we didn’t know if you could do it or not. Like, be in our shoes. Imagine that you got sucked into some other dimension and then some rando kid that can’t use their spider powers is supposed to save you.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“At least the one that we got knew what they were doing, right?”

“Right.” Miles smiles a little bit, their brain still screaming at them to _just tell them already!_ but –

“Gwen?”

“Yeah?”

“The earthquake?”

“Yeah.”

“It felt like the ones we had back then. Back when Kingpin was making his collider in my dimension.”

“Oh.”

“And I mean… what if that messed up the gizmo?”

“If it did, we can figure it out in the morning.”

“Yeah, I guess.” _Plus, staying with you wouldn’t be too bad._

“What?”

“What?”

“I couldn’t hear the second half of what you said. You were mumbling.”

“Oh, uh, I was just thinking. That, uh. Being here isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, you’re not that bad.”

“We’re a little team.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

 _Miles, you gotta say it. Now._ Miles’ heart is still pounding in their head, especially because Gwen is _right there_ and the words are on the tip of their tongue, and then Gwen’s arm wraps around them and their face starts to heat all the way up and they stiffen. Gwen notices, and backs their arm away.

“Sorry.”

“Nah Gwen, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s just that… sometimes I just hug a pillow when I go to sleep.”

_Do it now, Miles._

“Gwen, go ahead. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Gwen… it’s good.”

“Okay.”

Their arm lies on top of Miles’ chest, and Miles breathes deeply, gathering courage before they roll over to face Gwen, again. Their noses bump when they turn. Gwen looks away, and then looks at Miles.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Miles doesn’t know if they leaned in to close the gap between their lips or if it was Gwen, but the gap is for just a second closed before Gwen pulls away.

“Oh my god I’m so tired.”

Miles can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, me too.”

“The sun is probably going to rise soon.”

“I hope not.”

“Fuck.”

Gwen leans in again for a second kiss, one less tentative but still brief, and Miles obliges before Gwen pulls away again. The wind outside pulsates and swirls with a thickness barely palpable from the bedroom.

“…Gwen.”

“Miles.”

“Was that – “

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh my god I’m so tired.”

“Yeah.”

“Miles, we can talk about it in the morning, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But I wanted to do that, and I like being in this tiny-ass bed with you.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Gwen’s dorm room was always messier than they expected it to be, and once the vulnerability high had dropped off, they fell soundly asleep in Gwen’s arms. Outside, the sun seemed to almost sleep in before creeping up from the horizon, bathing the city in vibrant purples and oranges. Gwen’s curtains could barely keep any of the light out, but as the two slept, the flood of color into the room didn’t wake them at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> what kind of a fic would it be if it wasn't mostly me projecting onto some of my favorite characters! i know that i said that i might more of the other Miles/Gwen fic that i started (which is still true) but this came to me first, mostly because it's in part based off of real things that happened to me. like i have a whole poem that i never finished writing called "it is four in the morning and i am feeling brave" based off of the experience that in part inspired this piece.
> 
> recommendations:  
> Six Wooden Walls - abernathy  
> It's Hard - the Bad Plus. I spent basically this entire fic listening to the Bad Plus. side note: the whole "Sphere" thing is a jazz reference, just like Miles is a jazz reference (Jefferson Davis... Miles Davis... it took me way too long to figure that one out.) Listen to some Thelonious Sphere Monk whenever you get the chance.  
> listen to Porch Cat!  
> I just finished watching the first season of Broadchurch and oh boy that hurt. Also, the Odd Squad season finale was incredible. Also also the Carmen Sandiego reboot is pretty solid as far as I've seen. 
> 
> okay i'm going to bed. i'll edit this in the morning


End file.
